Following its Q2 fiscal year 2022 financial results, Sony held a quarterly conference call with investors and analysts. Chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki provided more details to go with the company’s financials. He also revealed that the company had manufactured 6.5 million PS5 units in the quarter ending September 30th, 2022.
This is due to materials and logistics restrictions being “significantly eased.” Demand is still strong, though – in September, 100,000 units of the console sold out in US retail stores in 17.5 hours on average. The increase in price for some regions also hasn’t slowed demand.
Sony plans to bring forward supply for the holiday season and wants to exceed the previous full-year forecast of 18 million units, bringing the total number of PS5 units to 37.3 million by March 31st, 2023. The target for the next fiscal year is to cross 23 million units. While gameplay time by PlayStation users was slightly up compared to the previous quarter, it dropped 10 percent year-on-year, reportedly due to more opportunities to go outside.
Sales of new games were still strong, but past games saw declining numbers, apparently due to players wanting to save money. As for the decrease in PlayStation Plus subscribers, Totoki said it was due to a greater decline in engagement from PS4 players than expected. PS5 players still have significantly higher engagement in comparison, and the company will increase hardware penetration to offset user engagement loss.
